Junior Development

[mdrew]

Thanks JA4220, congratulations to the boys from the Gold Coast sides for their outstanding efforts in combining for seven wins out of eight.

Vikings U16s
GC White 20 Ipswich 18
GC Yellow 16 Bris Red 14
Bris Blue 12 Bris Grey 10

I only saw the first game and a half but for mine the big surprise is that Brisbane Blue beat Grey.
GC Yellow went through as the only team undefeated .
Congrats to all boys involved, apparently the SEQ squads should be named this week.

[mdrew]

Good to see the two leading points scorers in the MM Cup so far both GC boys being Tony Sexton from Tweed Heads and Preston's boy Jayden Campbell from Burleigh.

[mdrew]

Jed Bignell has already gotten on the scoreboard for Norths scoring last weekend against Redbank Plains in a 28-16 win for Norths Blue

Jed Bignell the young five eight who performed so well for the Titans U15 side at Nerang a couple of weeks ago, including scoring a good first quarter try under the posts by beating a number of Western Mustangs players with a number of steps, has moved from the Western Downs region and will play for Northern Suburbs in the Ipswich junior rugby league U15 competition.

The Ipswich junior rugby league competition will line up this weekend for the third round of their pre-season competition with the regular season kicking off in a fortnight.

[mdrew]

Western Mustangs MM were defeated 28-20 by Ipswich in a curtain raiser to the Titans game at Toowoomba today. Titans High Performance unit member Chris Chambers who started on the wing with one of the Western Mustangs tries.

Western Mustangs second rower Kyle Petersen with his try this morning has three tries from two matches. I have not seen much of him but from limited observations he looks a likely type.

[mdrew]

Colts, Western Mustangs defeated Ipswich 26-20.

Former Titans NYC forward Blake Lenehan started for Ipswich in the second row crossing for a try for the Jets

[Bart]

Boys played pretty ordinary today too many mistakes again I think there will be a few changes in next weeks team

[mdrew]

Last weekend’s Andrew Johns U16 and Laurie Daley U18 matches between North Coast and Newcastle were cancelled but they will be played at Foster’s Harry Elliott Park on Friday, 30th March. Titans contracted second rower Ben Liyou will be lining up for North Coast U18 Laurie Daley side. He has been in outstanding form through the three matches that North Coast have been involved in to date in the competition.

With both the Andrew Johns U16 and Laurie Daley U18 matches the last of the regular season matches before the finals, both sides and also Northern Rivers will be sweating on the results to see if they have made the finals in one or both of the competitions.

[mdrew]

Even though they have moved from rugby league it is great to see a number of former Gold Coast junior rugby league players pushing on with their careers in rugby. Good luck to them all.

On the weekend in Round One of the Brisbane Premier Colts II competition, the Bond University side had four former rugby league boys in their side being:

E’’Shea Gafa – Open side flanker
Logan Watene – Right wing
Keahn Tipu – fullback
Tamati Patelesio – Reserve No. 8

Unfortunately they went down in terrible conditions by three points to Brisbane Wests.

[mdrew]

To date in the 2018 Queensland Cup competition AJ Brimson has from his two matches has been credited with a try assist and forcing a drop out. He has run for 69 metres and made an impressive 37 tackles at a tackling efficiency of 84.8%. On a per game basis AJ Brimson has run for 34.5 metres, made 18.5 tackles and kicked for 137 metres.

In his Queensland Cup debut in Round One against North’s AJ Brismon played the entire 80 minutes, ran for 55 metres, ten of those post contact made fourteen tackles at a tackling efficiency of 97.33% and kicked the ball on four occasions for 137 metres.

In the Round Three rivalry round against the Burleigh Bears AJ Brimson once again played the entire 80 minutes at five eight making 14 metres and a 24 tackles as the Bears ran a lot of traffic in his direction in difficult conditions.

[Titanic]

Is he going better than Elgey? That’s probably the only question.

[Hail Sezer]

Is he going better than Elgey? That’s probably the only question.

Hard to say when one is playing state cup and one is playing NRL

I’m a big fan of Brimmo but don’t think he’s ready yet.

[mdrew]

Round Three Queensland Cup Statistics for young Titans players:

Tyrone Roberts-Davis – wing (Burleigh)

- 80 minutes played

- 1 try

- 78 metres gained

- 11 hit-ups

- 29 post contact metres

- 3 offloads

- 1 line break

- 5 tackle breaks

Jai Whitbread – interchange (Burleigh)

- 33 minutes played

- 15 tackles at a 100% tackling efficiency

- 79 metres gained

- 8 hit-ups

- 16 post contact metres

- One try

- One try assist

- 1 line break

- 1 tackle break

- 2 off-loads

Kiah Cooper – wing (Tweed Heads)

- 69 minutes played

- 66 metres gained

- 8 hit-ups

- 20 post contact metres

- 2 dummy half runs for 14 metres

- 2 tackle breaks

AJ Brimson – five eight (Tweed Heads)

- 80 minutes played

- 14 metres gained

- 23 tackles at a 92% tackling efficiency

- 4 kicks for 137 metres

- 1 try assist

Tony Matauita – interchange (Tweed Heads)

- 25 minutes played

- 6 tackles at an 85.71% tackling efficiency

- 35 metres gained

- 1 tackle break

Meoaki Fotuaika – front row (Tweed Heads)

- 54 minutes played

- 124 metres gained (led team)

- 13 hit-ups (led team)

- 45 post contact metres (led team)

- 25 tackles at a 89.29% tackling efficiency

- 1 offload

[mdrew]

Junior Update from the Titans Official Site, a great watch:

https://www.titans.com.au/news/2018/...or-rep-update/

[mdrew]

I will acknowledge that I thought scrapping the NYC competition was the incorrect decision but seeing Moeaki Fotuaika’s development in the Queensland Cup for the Tweed Heads Seagulls, and also the play of Jai Whitbread (Burleigh) and AJ Brimson (Tweed Heads) I have to take my lumps and say from a player development perspective the decision from the NRL appears to be absolutely correct and will make the transition to the NRL by these youngsters and others of course less extreme and daunting.

[ja4220]

With no NYC do the clubs now have to maintain a minimum number of juniors?